Ebert's sheer love of life

Bob Greene, CNN Contributor

Updated 7:17 AM ET, Mon January 5, 2015

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Photos:Ebert's movie gems ... and fails

OUCH: Roger Ebert pulled no punches – The late "thumbs up" film critic Roger Ebert's career is featured in the CNN Film "Life Itself". In his reviews, Ebert pulled no punches. Click through the photos to see his high praise ... along with some of Ebert's most devastating lines.

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Photos:Ebert's movie gems ... and fails

Fail: 'North' (1994) – For "North," Ebert wrote perhaps his most negative movie review quote ever: "I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it."

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Photos:Ebert's movie gems ... and fails

Gem: 'Argo' (2012) – "The craft in this film is rare," Ebert wrote of "Argo," a movie about the Iranian hostage crisis. "It is so easy to manufacture a thriller from chases and gunfire, and so very hard to fine-tune it out of exquisite timing and a plot that's so clear to us we wonder why it isn't obvious to the Iranians." It starred Bryan Cranston and Ben Affleck, who also directed it.

Gem: 'Bonnie and Clyde' (1967) – "Years from now it is quite possible that 'Bonnie and Clyde' will be seen as the definitive film of the 1960s, showing with sadness, humor and unforgiving detail what one society had come to," wrote Ebert. Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty starred in the title roles.

Fail: 'Armageddon' (1998) – "The movie is an assault on the eyes, the ears, the brain, common sense and the human desire to be entertained," Ebert wrote about the 1998 action/adventure film, "Armageddon." "No matter what they're charging to get in, it's worth more to get out."

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Photos:Ebert's movie gems ... and fails

Gem: 'Scenes From a Marriage' (1974) – "And so begins one of the truest, most luminous love stories ever made, Ingmar Bergman's 'Scenes From a Marriage.' The marriage of Johan and Marianne will disintegrate soon after the film begins, but their love will not," wrote Ebert. Erland Josephson and Liv Ullmann played the couple.

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Photos:Ebert's movie gems ... and fails

Gem: 'Goodfellas' (1990) – Writing about "Goodfellas," Ebert said, "No finer film has ever been made about organized crime -- not even 'The Godfather,' although the two works are not really comparable." Ray Liotta, here with Gina Mastrogiacomo, starred.

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Photos:Ebert's movie gems ... and fails

Gem: 'Being John Malkovich' (1999) – For "Being John Malkovitch," Ebert suggested that the "movie has ideas enough for half a dozen films, but (Director Spike) Jonze and his cast handle them so surely that we never feel hard-pressed; we're enchanted by one development after the next." Catherine Keener and John Cusack starred.

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Photos:Ebert's movie gems ... and fails

Fail: 'Mad Dog Time' (1996) – "'Mad Dog Time' is the first movie I have seen that does not improve on the sight of a blank screen viewed for the same length of time," Ebert wrote. "Oh, I've seen bad movies before. But they usually made me care about how bad they were."

Fail: 'Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo' (2005) – "'Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo' makes a living prostituting himself. How much he charges I'm not sure, but the price is worth it if it keeps him off the streets and out of another movie." Rob Schneider played the title role.

Fail: 'A Lot Like Love' (2005) – After seeing "A Lot Like Love," Ebert wrote: "Judging by their dialogue, Oliver and Emily have never read a book or a newspaper, seen a movie, watched TV, had an idea, carried on an interesting conversation or ever thought much about anything. The movie thinks they are cute and funny, which is embarrassing, like your uncle who won't stop with the golf jokes." Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet were Oliver and Emily.

Roger Ebert: 1942 - 2013 – Before his death in 2013, Ebert wore a prosthesis after losing much of his jaw to thyroid cancer. During his career Ebert wrote thousands of movie reviews and, with Gene Siskel, co-hosted the iconic TV show "Siskel and Ebert At The Movies." Siskel died in 1999 after battling a brain tumor. Explore the fascinating world of Roger Ebert in the CNN Film "Life Itself" -- debuting Sunday, Jan. 4 at 9 p.m. ET.

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Story highlights

Bob Greene, friend of Roger Ebert's for more than 40 years, laments his passing

He says Ebert was amazing as a young Chicago journalist. They shared great times

He says Ebert persevered with humor and intelligence through his illness

CNN Contributor Bob Greene is a best-selling author whose 25 books include "Late Edition: A Love Story"; "Duty: A Father, His Son, and the Man Who Won the War"; and "Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen." This editorial was written shortly after Ebert's death in 2013. Explore more about the fascinating world of the late film critic Roger Ebert in an encore presentation of the CNN Film "Life Itself," Friday, January 9, at 9 p.m. ET on CNN.

(CNN)We were in touch two weeks ago; Roger Ebert was my friend for more than 40 years, and toward the end of March he took it upon himself to send out one of my CNN columns to his more than 800,000 Twitter followers, and I thanked him for his graciousness and generosity, which were constant.

And then, Wednesday, after he had publicly announced that he would be cutting back on his movie reviews as he battled the cancer that would not let up, I wrote him again to say some personal things. We could no longer have regular conversations, of course, because the cancer surgeries had cost him his speaking voice, but the e-mails oddly became more intimate than all the words we said out loud over all the decades.

I wish you could have known him as a young man -- his laughter, his stories, his sheer joy of being out around other newspaper people. You know how well he wrote -- I wish you could have seen how fast he wrote. It was the sound of a machine gun, on those old manual typewriters. No one writes that fast -- and then, to have the result be so beautiful?

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Roger was still drinking in those days, and there would be nights on North Avenue in Chicago when the bars would close at 4 a.m., and a group of us would come walking out, and rumbling down the street would be a Chicago Sun-Times delivery truck. We all knew the drivers by name, and they knew us, and they'd stop and invite us to hop in-- they'd give us a ride home while dropping bundles of papers off before dawn.

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So there we'd be, in those boxy red delivery trucks, and in the back would be the new editions, right off the press, sometimes still warm and damp. There were nights when Roger would pull the top copy off a bundle, and, right there in the truck, he would read the words of the review he had finished writing just hours before ... oh, he seemed so happy on those nights.

For several Christmases, we've had a tradition. A couple of Decembers ago, on Christmas Day, I took a walk around the downtown area of Chicago, the streets and sidewalks slick with ice and snow. There is a statue, near the Chicago River, of Irv Kupcinet, the late longtime columnist for the Sun-Times. The statue was coated with snow. I snapped a photo of it and sent it to Roger.

I told him I was sending it in remembrance of all the Christmas Days when we would be working in the fourth floor newsroom of the old Sun-Times building at 401 N. Wabash Avenue, and Kup would come walking in, snow on his overcoat, on the beat as always, holiday or no. Roger wrote back with three words: "Dat's right, Jack!" I laughed out loud, and I knew that Roger, if he could, would be laughing, too. Kup used to do the WGN Radio broadcasts of Chicago Bears games with play-by-play man Jack Brickhouse. Whatever Brickhouse might say about a play -- a touchdown, a great tackle, an interception -- Kup could be counted on to reply with:

"Dat's right, Jack!"

And so it was on Christmas Days, right up to and including the last one. I'd once again send that picture of the Kup statue to Roger, and his "Dat's right, Jack!" would come back like clockwork.

Bob Greene

It was Roger who called me one day in 1999, his voice shaking and mournful, to tell me the news that our mutual friend and Ebert's television partner, critic Gene Siskel, had just died. The courage Roger has shown these last years as he has fought his own illnesses -- you can read the details of what he went through in the formal obituaries. A man whose voice was so famous, who loved so much to tell stories: to have that stolen from him -- yet to persevere with such humor and intelligence and basic good-guyness...

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I was in Chicago for a few days last week. I knew that these recent months had been very difficult for him. On Oak Street, I saw the big, bright vertical sign for the old Esquire Theater.

The theater is gone and there's a new and glitzy steakhouse in the building.

In 1971, in that newsroom at 401 N. Wabash, Roger walked over and handed me the dupes -- the carbons -- of a review he had just written. It was for a film that was opening that week: "The Last Picture Show."

The dupes were light green and flimsy, the letters from that Gatling-gun typewriter of his black and distinct. He told me he thought I'd love the movie.

So, on that day more than 40 years ago, I went to the Esquire and saw it. He was right. It was wonderful.

Last week, seeing the Esquire sign, I walked into the new steakhouse. I wanted to offer Roger a silent toast.

I rode an escalator upstairs. Right around where I think the projection booth must have been, there was a bar. I took a seat and ordered something.

There is some dialogue in "The Last Picture Show," very near the end. Sam the Lion, the rough-hewn soul of the town, has died, and the woman to whom he turned over the movie theater he owned is lamenting the fact that she is going to have to close it down.